The Minions Before the Lord
by ShujilRedCloak
Summary: A Minion discovers his kind's life before the Overlords took over.
1. Chapter 1

In The Tower

Gillin followed the horde, searching for the body that would lead them. It really wasn't much of a horde, for, excluding the old one; there were only three of his kind. The old one, who was named Gnarl, yelled at any of them who showed signs of slacking. _Gnarl. The name suits him. I wonder if it was really his birth name. _Among any other people, Gillin would have doubted it, but that wasn't even close to the weirdest Minion name he'd heard. _Minion. Now what kind of name is that? It pretty much puts the idea that we are, and always were, slaves. _The others were cheering, because they had dug up the new Overlord. _We __are__ slaves, Gillin. Don't try to fool yourself._ The short creatures ran around, gathering armor for the new Lord. He shifted his thoughts to their future. _Giblet has smith's hands. He'll probably be sent to the forge, as soon as it's repaired. Niblert is a soldier, and always will be. Gnarl's days of manual labor are long past. He's effective at leading us, though that won't be needed with the new Overlord. He'll most likely be placed as an advisor. The jester, wherever the Abyss he is, will either keep his job or be killed. The last one never killed him, and he's actually a tough little sucker, so there's a good chance he'll survive. Finally, I'll be forced into the army with Niblert. Maybe I'll be sacrificed._ He sighed. They were definitely slaves. He wondered if they always were.

Their first field operation was a success. The Tower Heart shined, back in its pool. Gillin was sitting down in the cave where the minions were housed. He wasn't in the pit, like Giblet, Niblert, and the new guys. He simply sat, staring at the hive. It was a unique thing, this hive. It was filled with eggs that were constantly growing. A lot of them were already mature, but they were dead. Minions required the energy released from a dead body in order to hatch these eggs. The Overlord had the ability to instantly send this energy to the hive, if he touched it. Only Minions could pick it up and carry it. Certain life forms released different kinds of energy, which created different kinds of Minions. There was no point in dwelling on this, as there was only the Brown hive in the cave. The others had been lost the last time the tower was attacked. Gillin, for reasons not understood by him, reached out and touched the hive. A flash of light emanated from the Minion-birther.

Gillin woke up, feeling odd. Something seemed different. He would've noticed this sooner if the light hadn't disoriented him, but the difference was that he was no longer in the tower. Looking around, he did notice the rocks that acted as a natural barrier for his home, but that very home was nowhere to be seen. Leaving through a tunnel, Gillin wanted to see if he could determine the whereabouts of the tower elsewhere. The valley where Spree had been located when the world made sense looked pretty much the same, except for the halfling homes. Gillin didn't remember seeing so many of them. At one part, two groups had gathered. One was made up of humans, while the other was made up of halflings. Sneaking closer so he could hear, the Minion listened. "I, Duke Larti El Spree, founder of the great earldom of Spree, am telling you, we need to hunt the imps down."

"I am telling you, great Duke of Spree," the halfling said the title sarcastically, "That the imps never bothered us when we simply collected the necessary food. Your farms are what brought them out. Get rid of them, and the problem disappears."

"Then what, pray tell, are my people supposed to eat?"

"Hunt, gather, go back to Heaven's Peak." The halfling's eyes narrowed at the last suggestion.

_Imps. I think the last Overlord called red minions that once._


	2. Chapter 2

Ch. 2

Gillen left the bickering humanoids in order to search for what he hoped was his companions. He came upon the village of Spree rather quickly. It was smaller than he remembered, but it was also cleaner. The houses looked fresher, and in a better state of repair. _I'm in the past. There is no other explanation. I exist, through some means or another, before the Tower was built._ This realization failed to bring the response of wooziness or fear one would expect. Gillen simply accepted, and not without a tinge of excitement. _I am no longer a slave._

Another creature, which also would have been dubbed a 'Minion' in Gillen's time, watched the argument. Unlike the one the story followed before, this one was skinnier, slightly shorter, less hunched, and had a devil-like tail. The feature that most obviously distinguished him from his brown comrade was the fact that he wasn't brown, but bright red. Abdul-Haqq was his name, and he worked as the imps' spy and scout. It was the name of the former scout, and the scout before that. He ran, returning to his home. It was a cave, surrounded by fire and magma. The Burning Beetles, as his people called them, bothered them on occasion, but at that moment they were nowhere to be seen. Abdul-Fattah greeted him upon his entrance. "The Great Ones, Ahmed and Akil, have summoned the Abdel. Come with me." The two traveled to the Cavern of Council. Numerous Abdel were gathered there. The Abdel were the servants of the Great Ones, the current descendants of those who had led the imps from the Plain of Fire, to Ruboria, to their current home. Each was named Abdul, with a second name that denoted their work. Abdul-Sami was the judge, Abdul-Razzaq managed food, Abdul-Azim was the military leader, Abdul-Bari managed construction, etc. Haqq watched them all, with a small touch of annoyance. They had all been promoted to this station of life because they wanted it, and therefore worked for it. Haqq had been forced into his job due to his ability to withstand the absence-sickness, that terrible disease that befell those who left the aura of the hive, which made him an effective scout. Abdullah, the commander of the Abdel, called the meeting to order in the traditional manner; that is, by blasting fire from his hands into the decorative paper strings on the ceiling. They lit, revealing the flaming pattern of an enlarged imp, followed by the fire fizzing out. "From our birth in the Plain of Fire, to the struggle and awakenings of Ruboria, to the establishment of our home here, the imps have faced everything, risked everything, and lost everything, except for our way of life and our will to survive. We will continue to survive every hardship the Darkest Cold sends us. We are strong, we are enduring. We are imps." A cheer rose after the traditional speech. "This ceremony has but two proceedings. First, Abdul-Haqq will present his report of the pale-flesh's actions. Proceed, Abdul-Haqq." Haqq moved to the center of the cavern. "The short ones and the tall ones continue to argue. The tall ones wish to declare war, in an attempt to exterminate our race." There was some murmuring at this declaration. Abdullah motioned for silence. Haqq continued. "The short ones wish to avoid us, only fighting in self-defense." "Thank you, Abdul-Haqq. Now, the Great Ones themselves have come to this meeting in order to express a vision that the Hive-master has granted them." Two old, wizened imps entered the cavern, which was responded to with applause. "Silence, Abdel." The applause ceased. "The Hive has shown us a future, that is strange and mysterious to us. A metal-skinned creature leads us in this future, who uses a shining object, which was called a Heart, to expand the range of the hive's influence. We were able to travel around the world with it. This was all we were able to see. Whether this vision was literal, or subject to interpretation, is still a matter we have yet to determine. This is all we have to say." The Abdel dismissed themselves soon after. Haqq returned to the outside. He was never a fan of the hive's powers. Maybe it was because of his independence to it. Haqq had come out to think alone, but was interrupted by a strange creature that looked like him, but with yellow-brown skin and noticeably larger. It walked with a hunch, and had no tail. 


	3. Chapter 3

Gillin saw the red minion, or 'imp', as he had gathered they were called here. It stared at him, and he did likewise. After a few moments of this, both began to wonder whether the other would initiate conversation. The imp, who the reader has already been introduced to as Haqq, decided to speak. "Who, and what, are you, stranger?" Gillin noticed his accent, and, although no obvious grammatical errors were to be found, there seemed to be some sort of difficulty with his speech. He assumed that this wasn't the imp's first language. His response was what one would have expected of him. "My name is Gillin. I, well, I _was_ a brown minion of the Overlord. I don't know what I'm called here."

Abdul-Haqq pondered this Gillin creature's response. _Who or what was the 'Overlord', and what did he mean by 'here'?_ "Where are you from?" Gillin, though doubting his partner in speech's belief, told him.

In the great forest of Evernight, Cắt waited in a tree. The abilities of his kind allowed him to blend in better than any chameleon, in spite of the fact that his smell was much stronger than any chameleon's as well. He was additionally hidden by his location, which happened to be on an inconspicuous root, traversing over one of Evernight's numerous ponds, that was too weak for many creatures larger than Cắt. Two other roots similar to that one supported an equal number of his people, both likewise camouflaged. "What we here for?" asked Xe, apparently ignorant of their objective. Thư máu, the commander of this party, responded rather angrily, "Silence, idiot. Hivemaster himself order this. So we do without question." They were a practical people, who rarely bothered with past tense words and other such grammatical laws. As long as others could understand, one was speaking perfectly. They also didn't go for such frivolous activities as regular cleaning or etiquette, practices that they deemed as useless. Lack of doing them had led to being put at the bottom of the social order. As the two quit their argument, movement was heard.

Gillin was uncomfortable. Maybe it was the hard floor, or the hotter-than-average temperatures, or possibly even the various imps (the word had been fully ingrained in him by now) staring at him, occasionally whispering to each other. They surrounded him, but at a distance. He stood in the center of the Cavern of Council, awaiting a decision. He didn't know what was being decided, but hoped the choice in whichever side favored him. The one called Abdullah was arguing with the one he had met outside. The one who had apparently been tasked with managing the event, who was called Abdul-Sami, looked tired. "Have you reached a decision yet?" "No," was the response. Sami sighed. Sami disliked cases like this, where no evidence came into play. Everything came down to one imp's word against another's. In this particular one, the words being argued were between the spy, whom he trusted as much as all of the horde, and the Abdullah, who had thus far given no reason to consider any advice of his faulty. Abdullah thought this outsider was a lying miscreant, and as such be tried as one immediately. Abdul-Haqq claimed that, although at any other time absurd, his story matched with the Great Ones' predictions. This incessant bickering continued for quite some time before Sami, out of annoyance, interrupted them. "Why don't we ask the Great Ones? If he's from the future, then the Hivemaster should know about it. If he's a spy or such, then our masters should surely be informed of it."

"What should we be informed of? We only heard the last part." Everyone turned, shocked, to see that the Great Ones had arrived. "The Hivemaster ordered our presence here."

"Sirs, this creature claims to be from a time yet to come. Absurd, I know, but his description of it matches with the Hivemaster's vision. I think he may be a sign." Haqq humbly answered. Abdullah just stared. Gillin saw two imps that looked like red Gnarls.

Cắt was completely silent. A procession of elves had gathered. Half of them bore the crest of the current leader of their people. The others wore clothing made of animal bones. They were arguing about something. _What does the Hivemaster want with this?_ He shrugged it off, knowing the value of doing his duty.


	4. Chapter 4

_Ch. 4_

Akil looked at Ahmed. This creature looked like some sort of abomination of their people's image, and therefore should be extinguished. On the other hand, the Hivemaster would not have sent them down without a good reason. Imps were taught that he was all knowing, and not even the Great Ones were allowed to question his wisdom. "We have decided that the creature's tale is to be believed, at least for the present." Abdullah did not agree with this decision, but knew his place well enough to keep such thoughts to himself. The Great Ones left.

Cắt observed that the talks were growing more aggressive. Her understanding of elvish politics was too poor to completely understand the issue, but it seemed that there was a dispute occuring between the current leader and a fringe religious group. She also noticed a small child among the non-religious group, which seemed idiotic and nonsensical. "But won't you at least listen..." "No! The followers of the Skull Spirits will not tolerate the unholy acts committed by the Stormrider dynasty, no matter how many times they try to mitigate the horrors!" "What horrors? We've simply put trade routes through the goblin territiories!" "You are forcing innocent merchants to walk through those wretched lands! You are putting them in the line of fire for goblin attacks, and even the potential accident or two in the attempts for eradication of th accursed blight." "Well, maybe if you left them alone, the goblins would stop their raids." "They are monsters, and this place will benefit greatly from their death!" "I don't like them either, but your, well, _genocide_, seems rather extreme." The leader of the skull spirit followers glared at him. "I feared that this would occur. The only motivation for showing those _things_ any sympathy is an unholy alliance. All reason leads to the conclusion that you're part of the group of monsters that we are tasked with destroying, and therefore must be destroyed." He who was spoken to paled. "Are you suggesting..." "Carry on our holy task, my companions! Eliminate the assisters of the blight!" "THIS IS MADNESS!" Those were the last words spoken by the representative of the Stormrider dynasty, as an arrow cut through his vocal organs. Arrows cut through alternate organs of alternate individuals, most causing mortal wounds. While the government group was not without arms or training, they were caught unawares, giving their opponents a severe advantage. Cắt noticed the man nearest the small child lift him up and retreat. Some instinct within her demanded pursuit of the pair, and she followed the instinct.

"Because this 'Gillen', as he calls himself, is obviously unaffected by his distance from our hive's presence, he will assist Haqq as the scout," Abdullah decreed. "Tonight the Duke El Spree is having many important from the pale-flesh's cities for dinner, and more importantly, a discussion of current politics, as Abdul-Haqq brought to our attention not too long ago. You two are to use your size to infiltrate Castle Spree and listen in on what they say. If any information relevant to our people is mentioned, it is to be reported back here as soon as possible. I trust you understand?" Haqq understood his part in the mission well enough, but the logic behind sending Gillen was lost on him. This sounded rather dangerous, and they had little knowledge of the newcomer's capabilities. Then it dawned on him; Abdullah still thought that the creature was a monster, and if scouting proved outside of Gillen's prowess, he would be eliminated this very night. _Why does Abdullah hate him so?_ The two left. Questioning Abdullah's orders was not their place in this situation.

"I'm scared," the little elf proclaimed in a whisper. "Don't worry, Oberon. Those fanatics have no way of finding us out here. I know that this trip to show you how political business was done didn't go so well, but you're safe now." The soldier who took Oberon away from the battle did what he could to reassure the boy, but he really didn't have the knowhow to perform such an act. "I've put a magical barrier over this tree. Try to sleep." "Whenever I close my eyes, I see images of rats with bows and skeletal deer dancing, destroying me and every elf they can find." "I know it's hard, but you'll have to pull through." The soldier looked grave. Understanding could be reached in that area, for he hadn't had the greatest of days for reasons already described. "Just think of the trees rotecting you, the way this one is." "Okay" With that, the boy slept somewhat soundly. Cắt was beginning to grow weary of their banter. "Someday you'll be king, lad. I just hope that it's in better times than this." This attracted the goblin's interest. _If me get friendship with king now, me kind no worry about king's anger later. _She tried to greet the two, but the soldier was on the offensive as soon as she came in sight. "Die, monster! You will not harm this boy!" "Me no want harm boy, me want-" "Save your idiot speech. Without you monsters, the Skull Spirit Followers wouldn't have started this rebellion." The much larger elf pulled out his blade, knowing too well that the creature could break through his shielding if it truly wanted to. Instead, the creature left, knowing that another chance for peace with the elves had just vanished.


End file.
